Türkiye with Julian Emre Sayarer
Tue 17 Oct 2023
7:00pm at Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, 14-15 John St, Bath, BA1 2JL
Book + Ticket gives you a free ticket with a copy of the book, all tickets include 15% off any books purchased on the night, a glass of wine, author interview, Q&A and signing.
Other ways to book:
Email books@mrbsemporium.com, call 01225 331155 or pop into the shop at 14-15 John Street, Bath. BA1 2JL.
We are absolutely delighted to welcome award-winning travel writer, Julian Emre Sayarer, back to Mr B’s to discuss his incredible new book Türkiye; a cycling tour through the history and landscape of a country as it reaches its first century.
Not only has Julian broken the world record for circumnavigation by bicycle (riding 18,049 miles through 20 countries in 169 days), he has also won the Stanford Dolman Travel Writing Award for Intersate, an account of hitchhiking through middle America, plus Julian’s previous book, Iberia, was published by our very own publishing house – Fox, Finch & Tepper – in 2021. We are thrilled to have the chance to bring Julian back to Bath for this incredible new publication, and we hope you’ll join us!
About the Book:
On the eve of its centenary year and elections that will shape the coming generations, Julian Emre Sayarer sets out to cycle across Turkiye, from the Aegean coast to the Armenian border. Meeting Turkish farmers and workers, Syrian refugees and Russians avoiding conscription, the journey brings to life a living, breathing, cultural tapestry of the place where Asia, Africa and Europe converge.
The result is a love letter to a country and its neighbours – one that offers a clear-eyed view of Turkiye and its place in a changing world. Yet the route is also marked by tragedy, as Sayarer cycles along a major fault line just months before one of the most devastating earthquakes in the region’s modern history. Always engaged with the big historical and political questions that inform so much of his writing, Sayarer uses his bicycle and the roadside encounters it allows to bring everything back to the human level.
At the end of his journey we are left with a deeper understanding of the country, as well as the essential and universal nature of political power, both in Turkiye and closer to home.
“Sayarer is a precise and passionate writer…We need writers who will go all the way for a story, and tell it with fire. Sayarer is a marvellous example” HORATIO CLARE